Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Adam Rifkin has a serious fascination with filth.
THE DARK BACKWARD remains one of the most gag-inducing movies I've ever witnessed in a theater. Bill Paxton in particular seemed to roll around in the squalor of the film, delighted by it all. That film was a surreal cartoon, though, nothing like the real world.
NIGHT AT THE GOLDEN EAGLE, though, is something else entirely. It's an unflinching look at a Los Angeles that most people don't realize even exists. It is grimy, so dirty around the edges that you start to itch as you watch it, but it's not exaggerated or hyperreal. If anything, the film is so naked, so close to the truth, that it becomes difficult to watch in several places.
In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say Adam Rifkin has made a great movie.
It's small. Make no mistake about it. This is a wee little independent film. I'd be stunned if this cost over $2 million, and I bet it's a lot closer to $1 million. Most of the faces you see are unknowns, even though Natasha Lyonne, Vinnie Jones, Anne Magnuson, and even James Caan all appear in the movie. It doesn't look cheap at all thanks to the expert, almost experimental cinematography of Francesco Varese, but that's a plus in this case. Rifkin finds the poetry amidst the heaps of garbage that seem to crowd into his frame at every opportunity. He finds grace among the graceless, and manages to paint a searing portrait of one person's last desperate grasp at redemption even as another person takes a first step away from innocence and into the cold, cruel world. The film hits hard, and it never pulls a punch.
There are two basic storylines at work in the film. One involves two old friends, Mick (Vinny Argiro) and Tommy (Donnie Montemarano). One of them is just out of prison, and the other is looking to finally start a life away from crime. The actors themselves come from very different backgrounds. Argiro has been around, showing up in various cops and robbers roles over the years. Montemarano has never been in a movie before this. Here, though, their relationship is the spine of the film, and the two of them are front and center, and they both deliver, turning in wry performances, every line thick with unspoken regret. These are old men who seem to finally be realizing that their lives have slipped away, and that they are not going to be getting any more second chances.
The other storyline deals with the efforts of Rodan (Vinnie Jones) to convert Loriann (Nicole Jacobs) from a timid runaway to a money-earning prostitute, with a little help from Sally (Ann Magnuson), one of Rodan's most experienced girls. We've seen similar material in other films, but what makes this so electric, so demanding of your attention, is the horrible, unflinching clarity with which Rifkin details the process. Loriann is impossibly young, like a soap commercial on distractingly long, coltish legs that meet in a pair of tight denim cutoffs. She's adorable in that "kid-sister-on-the-verge-of-womanhood" sort of way, with her braces and her shy smile. When Rodan meets her, she's by herself, upset, an obvious runaway and an easy mark. He ingratiates himself, and Jones is loathesome in the role. His oily charm is overwhelming, oppressive, and he preaches love out of one side of his mouth and fear out of the other. He leaves Loriann with Sally, and it's up to Sally to prepare the girl for what lies ahead. She does so by putting her in a closet and letting her watch as Sally takes care of a customer in the first of several unforgettable sequences in this storyline. This is the first screen appearance by Nicole Jacobs, but she's a natural, and her fear and her bravado and her gradual swing from open and honest to closed and guarded is played with a restraint that escapes many veteran performers. Magnuson, a long-time fave of mine, does excellent work here, and she and Jacobs seem to forge a very real, very believable bond in their time together. When Loriann is finally put to the test and told to take a customer of her own, the tension is almost too much to take. Rifkin puts us so far inside the skin of this girl that it feels like we're the ones being violated, and it seems to be unbearable.
It's important that Rifkin give these girls a human heart that we cannot ignore, since another prostitute ends up dead, a prop of sorts through much of the movie, and the way the two storylines impact one another and echo off of each other serves to drive home the point that the world at large may have written off these girls as trash, disposable, but we shouldn't. Actually, it's not just the girls that are invisible here. It's everyone at the Golden Eagle Hotel. I have a soft spot for the work by Fayard Nicholas, one of the famous Nicholas Brothers, a dancing team that you must see to believe. Fayard has a moment here where he taps that old glory, if only for a fleeting second, that is magic. It's all because of the way Rifkin lets us watch that amazing face and lets it tell the whole story.
Landmark Theaters is working with Rifkin to distribute the film themselves, another example of how Landmark is trying to step outside the traditional and easy definitions of an "exhibitor" in these days of the MegaMultiplex. As the film opens around the country, I'll make sure to keep you posted on dates. It's well worth you seeking out this small gem. It snuck up on me and then stuck with me in the week or so since I've seen it, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what you find if you decide to spend a NIGHT AT THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
And you'll absolutely want to shower afterwards.
Hmmm... guess maybe it is a great little movie after all. Helluva job, Adam.
"Moriarty" out.
